The Pain Without
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: After Sebastian asks Kurt to tell him about the monster who changed him, the monster who hurt Kurt, Kurt shuts Sebastian out in an attempt to protect him. But Sebastian, steadily becoming more and more a vampire and less a human, is beginning to think that Kurt has other motives. Follow up to "The Pain Within". Vampire!Sebastian Kurtbastian. Kurt H. Sebastian S.
**A/N: Warnings for angst, anxiety, jealousy, and mention of rape and past abuse.**

All in all, Kurt's life in New York is shaping up exactly the way he wanted. Even with his boyfriend now a vampire, and the restrictions that puts on their existence together, Kurt can't complain. He's living the dream, weeks away from performing in a sold-out show while attending the school he'd worked so hard and sacrificed so much to get in to. He even managed to swing a part time internship at Vogue, which is on temporary hiatus until the show closes, but still. His mentor at Vogue, Isabelle Wright, demands that he see her at least one day a week so that they can catch up on life and fashion trends over hummus wraps, cucumber water, and a mani-pedi.

Kurt is no longer the lost boy from Ohio, wearing exclusively retro t-shirts, ripped jeans, and scuffed Doc Martens, running away from a town that he loathes with every cell in his body. No more is he struggling, scraping to get by, uncertain whether the dreams he brought with him in his mother's vintage Louis Vuitton luggage are actually obtainable. Nowadays, he's Kurt Hummel, NYADA student, living with the love of his life in the greatest city on Earth, traveling down the road to success. On the day to day, it's easy to look at the things he has and say that his life is next to perfect.

In the warm, golden light of day, it's easy.

But as day turns to night, things change. Terror settles in. It crams itself so deep into Kurt's body that it fills the arteries inside his bones. On the really bad nights, when the gruesome nightmares start before he's even asleep and don't stop after he wakes, he almost wishes he could go back home.

Lima, Ohio – the homophobic hamlet where Kurt was born and raised - ran rife with pig-headed bullies, socially accepted harassment of minorities, and small town, hive mentality. Eager to leave it behind, he tricked himself into believing that Lima was as bad as it got, regardless of the nightly news giving him information to the contrary, and that his life would significantly improve the second he stepped over the county line. But he was wrong. Being slammed into lockers and tossed into dumpsters isn't the worst of it…not by a long shot.

Busy with school and performing, hanging out with his friends and Sebastian, it's easy to forget that there's real evil in the world. Evil that no one talks about, that no one warns you about because they don't know it exists. It's too difficult a thing to believe. Evil that extends outside of wedgies and swirlies. Evil that surmounts gang violence and school shootings.

Evil that isn't mortal, isn't even human.

Evil that lurks in dark corners, that watches from the shadows, that hides in his memories, waiting to unearth itself and sink its teeth into his brain over and over and over again, waiting to break him in half and bleed him dry. One evil in particular skulks around the city where he lives. Some days, he forgets that it knows the way he smells, the way he tastes.

It knows his weaknesses, knows how to make him beg.

It knows the sounds of his screams.

Out in the protective daylight, Kurt forgets everything and can actually be happy.

Until night falls. Until he closes his eyes.

Then there's nowhere for him to hide.

* * *

Sebastian is pissed. He's pissed at Kurt. He doesn't want to be pissed at Kurt, but he is, and he can't help himself. Kurt is the last vestige of humanity that Sebastian has within him, and he's put a distance between them. Without Kurt, that final, withering piece of the man Sebastian was will slip away into oblivion, and he knows there will be no getting it back. Kurt knows it, too, but he still won't tell Sebastian anything, and now, Kurt won't let Sebastian bite him. Not only does Sebastian have to find food elsewhere (not that that's really any hardship – Kurt wasn't Sebastian's only form of nourishment to begin with), but he can't search for the truth in Kurt's blood.

They haven't made love since that night when Sebastian asked Kurt to reveal the identity of the monster who changed him.

The monster who hurt Kurt.

They're strained, separate, sleeping apart, barely talking, not touching, and Sebastian can't do it anymore. He can't survive like this without turning into a killer completely. Without Kurt as his talisman against the sinister forces coursing by way of the venom in his veins, intrusive thoughts creep into his mind. They work against him, convincing Sebastian that he had the wrong idea.

Kurt wasn't taken by force. He gave himself willingly, and now he's holding a torch for this other vampire.

Kurt's just putting up with Sebastian out of obligation, secretly waiting for this other vamp to return.

Maybe he has. Maybe they see each other in secret. Maybe they've been laughing at poor, lovesick Sebastian behind his back.

 _Who is he?_ Sebastian wonders as he watches Kurt say one final farewell to his friends at the theater door before their walk home. _Is he here? Living in the basement of this very theater? Hiding between the racks of clothes in the costume shop, where he and Kurt sneak away to have at one another between scenes?_ This affair could be going on right underneath Sebastian's nose. He could have been blind to it this whole time.

What a simp he's been. What an absolute moron.

Sebastian sneers as Kurt smiles and waves, but when he turns to join Sebastian, his face drains immediately of any joy.

"So, you waste all your pretty smiles on those fools over there, and you don't have anything left for me, huh?"

"Don't be like that, Sebastian," Kurt pleads, rubbing his sore left shoulder when Sebastian doesn't offer. "I'm just tired, that's all."

"Yeah, you're tired," Sebastian scoffs. "You're _always_ tired."

"Why are you snapping at me?" Kurt asks, eyes darting back and forth as they leave the safety of the street lights and enter the shadows. "I haven't done anything."

"You're right," Sebastian says, words steeped in cynicism and frustration. "You haven't done anything. You _refuse_ to do anything."

"Right. I didn't do anything," Kurt agrees, missing the insinuation. "So I don't deserve your anger." Kurt sniffles, teetering on the verge of heartbreak, but Sebastian doesn't seem to notice. Sebastian, who knows Kurt better than anyone on the planet, doesn't see how completely he's coming unwound. Not anymore.

"Yeah? Then who does deserve it?" Sebastian growls. "You won't let me touch you, you won't let me bite you, you won't let me make love to you, or sleep with you, or…or hold you. Do I deserve that? Do I deserve being blocked out because I want to protect you?"

Kurt sighs, several weeks' worth of stress and anxiety and aggravation dissipating in a single breath, but instead of bringing him any relief, it makes him feel empty – hollowed out.

"You don't understand, Sebastian."

"Then why don't you _help_ me understand?" Sebastian says, storming two steps ahead of every one step Kurt takes. "When I taste you, I feel my bones break. I see violence, and blood, and agonizing pain. I see things I can't make any sense of, things that scare me. That make me angry. The only person who can explain them to me is you, and you won't talk to me!"

"It's…it's not easy," Kurt says, his legs turning to rubber as thoughts of _him_ fill his mind, the fear that he might be somewhere nearby, listening to them fight.

That the mere mention of him might cause him to materialize from thin air.

"Why don't you tell me what the fuck is going on so I know why you're shutting me out of your life?"

"I'm…I'm not shutting you out," Kurt insists, dropping his volume as the surrounding sidewalk grows darker, wary of whose ears may be listening. "I just need a little time to think. Some space to sort things out."

"I see. You want space," Sebastian mutters. "Fine. I'll give you space." Sebastian takes off, walking so quickly ahead, Kurt has no hope of keeping up, but he holds himself back from launching up the side of the brownstone to his left. His sanity is tied on only by a single thread, and that thread is anchored by Kurt's love for him…and his love for Kurt.

Kurt watches Sebastian until he can't see him anymore, his black peacoat and jeans blending into the night. Kurt knows he has to tell him. Sebastian deserves to know. There's a man out there with a claim to him. Sebastian needs to know that claim exists.

Kurt doesn't raise his voice when he speaks. He knows Sebastian can hear him. Sebastian could be five miles away and he'd hear. Kurt's lips quiver. His throat constricts. The first word almost doesn't come out, a sob fighting to circumvent it.

When Kurt parts his lips to confess, he feels like he'd rather die.

"He…he r-raped me," Kurt says in a whisper so that no one around, walking by, of no concern to them, overhears.

Kurt can't see Sebastian, but he feels him. He knows Sebastian has stopped walking.

"For hours," Kurt says. "He made me" – Kurt's voice hitches as he talks, recounting the events while trying not to remember them, isolating them to his mouth and not allowing them to weed into his brain and take root, not after the time he spent trying to pull them out – "he made me scream for him, while you lay dying." Kurt keeps walking, step after deliberate step. With no special power, nothing more than this blood connection that he and Sebastian share, Kurt feels what was once Sebastian's human heart start to shatter. "He broke me, tore me open again and again, and laughed at me while he did it. He threatened you. He said that if I didn't do what he wanted, he'd kill you, slowly, painfully, then me. He said that if you changed me, he'd come back. He said that we belong to him. I thought he was stringing me along, that he was going to kill me anyway, and I'd never see you again, so I did it. To be honest, he was so much stronger than me, I really didn't have much of a choice."

When Kurt finally sees Sebastian, back turned, hunched forward, fists clenched at his sides, trembling from his shoulders all the way down his back, he's the picture of a man fighting to maintain…but also a man ready to kill.

"Why…why didn't you tell me?" Sebastian asks with his mind since he doesn't trust his voice.

"Because I knew you'd be angry," Kurt says. "I knew you'd want to go after him. He said he's ancient, so much stronger than you. I watched you die once. I can't lose you twice."

"But, that's not all," Sebastian says perceptively.

"No, that's not all," Kurt admits. "I also thought that, maybe…"

Kurt stops behind him and Sebastian turns, mouth twisted, fangs bared. "Did you…did you think I'd blame _you_?"

"I know it's stupid," Kurt says, hanging his head with a shame he has no reason to feel, "but it had crossed my mind."

Sebastian's body remains rigid, but his fists unclench. He reaches out to Kurt, hands hovering at a respectful distance, not making contact. Kurt steps forward into his grasp, and allows himself to be touched.

"I don't blame you, Kurt," Sebastian says, the warmth of Kurt's skin through his clothes seeping into the palms of Sebastian's hand, taming the beast and bringing back the man in him. "I could never blame you. If anything, I blame myself. I put you in that position…" Sebastian continues while Kurt shakes his head to object. "I should have just gone to the hospital in Ohio like my parents wanted. I shouldn't have made you responsible for me. It was unfair…and I'm sorry, Kurt. I'm so, so, so sorry. I would take it back if I could. I swear…"

Kurt walks into Sebastian's arms when a red tear drop rolls down his cheek.

"Shhh," Kurt says, burying himself inside Sebastian's cold embrace. He was so bitter at Sebastian when he demanded to know, tearing their mattress to shreds when Kurt said _no_. Kurt was trying so hard to protect him. But distance wasn't the answer. Kurt needs Sebastian too much. "It was my decision – coming here with you, searching him out. It wasn't your fault. You didn't know."

Sebastian holds Kurt against him, curbing his supernatural strength so he doesn't accidentally crush him.

"I should have known. I should have figured it out earlier, but I was still changing." Sebastian shakes as flashbacks assail him - Kurt crying, his face twisted as he wails in pain, adding to that the thought of this creature fucking him, destroying him. He shakes harder, despair at his own uselessness clawing inside him, threatening to rip through his stomach. "But that's not an excuse, and I'll never forgive myself. Ever. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't either."

"There's nothing to forgive," Kurt assures him. "You didn't do anything wrong. But now, we have to find a way to go on with our lives. We have to figure out where we go from here."

"Can we go back a few steps? Pick up three weeks from last Thursday and go on from there?" Kurt chuckles, but Sebastian fixes him with a pleading expression that sobers him. "Let me be with you again," Sebastian begs. "I promise, I won't do anything to hurt you. I'll only do what you ask. And I won't…I won't go looking for _him,_ no matter what I see when I bite you. I just…I can't lose you, Kurt. You're everything to me."

"Alright," Kurt says, relief returning to his face, relaxing his tense, exhausted features. "But only if you promise…"

"Of course," Sebastian says, excitedly pulling Kurt into his arms. It feels like Sebastian's waited forever to have his boyfriend again. He doesn't want to let him go – ever. And besides…he can't look Kurt in the eyes and lie to him. Sebastian knew before he asked that letting that bastard go was a promise he had no intention of keeping. If there's a monster out there, haunting Kurt's steps, keeping Sebastian from making him immortal, Sebastian needs to find a way to get rid of it, whether Kurt approves or not. Sebastian swallows his guilt as the beast overwhelms his human side and begins to rise. "You have my word."


End file.
